Newman's Omaha Connection

Father Juan Velez kindly sent me a review copy of his new book, Holiness in a Secular Age: The Witness of Cardinal Newman, published by Scepter. I'm about two-thirds through the book, which serves as an excellent introduction to Newman's life, projects, and works, exploring his educational projects especially--not the just The Idea of a University, but the practical experience Newman had teaching and administering education at Oxford, in Dublin, and at the Oratory School.

In the course of describing Blessed John Henry Newman's affinity for friendship, Father Velez mentions the first Bishop of Omaha, Nebraska, James O'Connor, whom he met at the Propaganda Fide in Rome while studying for the priesthood. I wondered why an American bishop would be studying in Rome, but then discovered with a little research that Bishop O'Connor was born in Ireland, came to the United States, studied at St. Charles Seminary in Philadelphia, and then went to the Propaganda College in Rome, where he was ordained in 1848. Then he became the first bishop of the Diocese of Omaha:

Bishop James O’Connor was appointed to replace Bishop O’Gorman in 1876. In 1880, the Dakotas were separated and the Diocese of Sioux Falls was established. Montana was dropped three years later. In 1885, the Diocese of Omaha, consisting of Nebraska and Wyoming, was established.

During Bishop O’Connor’s administration, many of Omaha’s older parishes were founded and the Franciscan Fathers arrived in the area.

After the Creighton family gave Bishop O’Connor the college they had endowed, Creighton University was entrusted to the Society of Jesus in 1878.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, then Father O'Connor returned to the United States after ordination:

The following year he was appointed rector of St. Michael's Seminary, Pittsburgh, and in 1862 rector of St. Charles's Seminary, Overbrook, Pennsylvania. In 1872 he was appointed pastor of St. Dominic's Church, Holmesburg, Pennsylvania. In 1876 he was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska, and on 20 August of the same year he was consecrated titular Bishop of Dibona by Bishop Ryan of St. Louis. During his episcopate the vicariate developed with wonderful rapidity. The construction of the Union Pacific Railway in 1867, and more especially the extension of the Burlington Railway in the seventies and eighties, opened up Nebraska to colonists, and white settlers began to pour in from the Eastern states. It became the duty of the new vicar to provide for the growing needs of the faithful, and the yearly statistics of the vicariate show how successful were his labours. 

When he was consecrated " titular Bishop of Dibona", that was like a holding place designating a mission territory where no established diocese yet exists. It would be fascinating to read some of the letters between Newman and Bishop O'Connor! I don't have ready access to those letters, but I wonder if they corresponded about issues of university education, since Bishop O'Conner was involved in the establishment of Creighton University.

Blessed John Henry Newman on Friendship

Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, quoted Newman in a talk given to teachers in his diocese, "reprinted" in Crisis Magazine:

My spiritual patron, Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, said that friendship is a school of love, a school of Christian charity. He thought that human friendship teaches us, in a particular way, how to exercise universal charity.

Newman wrote that “the best preparation for loving the world at large, and loving it duly and wisely, is to cultivate an intimate friendship and affection towards those who are immediately about us.”

Friendship is a “school of Christian charity” because friendship makes demands upon us. Our friends are those who are most close to us, who share a vision, and a mission. Our friends are collaborators in the great work—the magnum opus—of our lives. But our friends, like us, are human beings. And relationships with human beings require forgiveness, forbearance, patience, and understanding. We learn those virtues by loving our friends. Newman says that

The real love of man must depend on practice, and therefore, must begin by exercising itself on our friends around us, otherwise it will have no existence. By trying to love our relations and friends, by submitting to their wishes, though contrary to our own, by bearing with their infirmities, by overcoming their occasional waywardness by kindness, by dwelling on their excellences, and trying to copy them, thus it is that we form in our hearts that root of charity, which, though small at first, may, like the mustard seed, at last even overshadow the earth.

Bishop Conley is quoting from Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermon "Love of Relations and Friends", based upon the verse from the First Letter of St. John: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God." (4:7). Blessed John Henry Newman goes to demonstrate how observing the old adage that "charity (love) begins at home" has an influence on how we respond in charity (love) to our neighbor and even those we don't know but want to help:

Further, that love of friends and relations, which nature prescribes, is also of use to the Christian, in giving form and direction to his love of mankind at large, and making it intelligent and discriminating. A man, who would fain begin by a general love of all men, necessarily puts them all on a level, and, instead of being cautious, prudent, and sympathising in his benevolence, is hasty and rude; does harm, perhaps, when he means to do good, discourages the virtuous and well-meaning, and wounds the feelings of the gentle. Men of ambitious and ardent minds, for example, desirous of doing good on a large scale, are especially exposed to the temptation of sacrificing individual to general good in their plans of charity. Ill-instructed men, who have strong abstract notions about the necessity of showing generosity and candour towards opponents, often forget to take any thought of those who are associated with themselves; and commence their (so-called) liberal treatment of their enemies by an unkind desertion of their friends. This can hardly be the case, when men cultivate the private charities, as an introduction to more enlarged ones. By laying a foundation of social amiableness, we insensibly learn to observe a due harmony and order in our charity; we learn that all men are not on a level; that the interests of truth and holiness must be religiously observed; and that the Church has claims on us before the world. We can easily afford to be liberal on a large scale, when we have no affections to stand in the way. Those who have not accustomed themselves to love their neighbours whom they have seen, will have nothing to lose or gain, nothing to grieve at or rejoice in, in their larger plans of benevolence. They will take no interest in them for their own sake; rather, they will engage in them, because expedience demands, or credit is gained, or an excuse found for being busy. Hence too we discern how it is, that private virtue is the only sure foundation of public virtue; and that no national good is to be expected (though it may now and then accrue), from men who have not the fear of God before their eyes.

That reminded me of the goals of Blessed Frederic Ozanam and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul: not organized, systematic philanthropy, but personal, immediate charity from one Christian to another.

The first coat of arms at the top is Bishop Conley's, the second is Cardinal Newman's.